The current issue of eWeek (June 26, 2006). an information technology trade journal, just reported on the debut of a $100 laptop. The machine, sponsored by "One Laptop Per Child", was announced by Nicholas Negroponte, chairman of the organization. The laptop, intended to be distributed at minimum cost to disadvantaged children all over the world, would be a boon to yachtsmen looking for either a dedicated navigation computer or a cheap and convenient internet surfboard. The hardware specs, as announced, are hardly exceptional. It boasts a 500MHZ CPU, 128 MB RAM and a 512 MB flash disc. This is about 5 years behind the state of the art. Still the machine should be able to handle most navigation programs with relative ease and/or e-mail and web browsing. Probably no streaming movies though. The computer requires no technological leaps. Advances in large scale chip production will enable all computational components to be fabricated in a single step. Flash disc memory prices have dropped dramatically because of the interest in digital photography. Probably the most expensive component will be the plastic case. There are two real benefits for yachtmen. The first is very low power consumption, only 2 watts, about 1/10 that of a conventional laptop. This is low enough for the machine to run for 15 minutes with a couple of turns of a hand crank. It is sort of like those "emergency" radios sold in Radio Shack and West Marine. Second, there is a reflective screen, visible in direct sunlight. The last laptop that offered reflective screens was the HP Omnibook 300 of 15 years ago. No problems with flying bridge operation with these babies. I can verify that the computer is powerful enough to run modern navigation programs. I run MacENC and GPSy Pro on my 9 year old Mac 1400 laptop, with considerably lesser specifications. A neighbor runs the Capt'n on an even older IBM Thinkpad. This is not the heavily hyped Microsoft tablet laptop. In fact Microsoft has criticized the idea of a $100 laptop as being too far behind the technological frontier, but apparently is quietly working on a version of Windows which will run on it. If they can bring off the $100 price, Negroponte estimates sales of such a machine to be more than 50 million units the first year, the bulk going to school districts for elementary education and to lesser developed countries. When they are available to the general public, I'll buy one for sure. Larry Z